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Smart Maintenance – The Future of Maintenance

With the digitalization of manufacturing, production systems are becoming increasingly complex - in many companies, production facilities are already fully networked with each other. While companies are benefiting from increased efficiency on the one hand, the demands on the maintenance of machines and systems are also increasing on the other. These challenges can be mastered with smart maintenance.

What is Smart Maintenance?

The term smart maintenance covers all technologies and processes that enable a company to organize maintenance work more “intelligently”. The aim is to use comprehensive data from production to precisely determine when repairs or maintenance work should be carried out on machines.

The core of the concept is to continuously record and evaluate the actual condition of machines (using IoT sensors). This means that work is no longer only initiated after a machine has broken down; instead, such a breakdown is proactively prevented thanks to regular, intelligently planned maintenance intervals. 

This proactive approach prevents costly machine and system downtime, which in turn is essential for the productivity, efficiency and profitability of a production facility. Companies that want to develop their production facilities into a smart factory in the medium term must therefore also consider the concept of smart maintenance.

Maintenance in Everyday Industrial Life - Typical Problems 

As sensible and catchy as the principle of intelligent maintenance is in theory, it often encounters a number of practical problems in everyday business. Companies must first address these in a targeted manner in order to create a solid basis for the introduction of a smart maintenance concept.

In order for smart maintenance to be introduced and used effectively in companies, a rethink is needed in several areas - towards more data-based work, training employees in technological solutions and the willingness to systematically and permanently combine all of this into a holistic concept.

Smart Maintenance – What Characterizes the Concept 

The concept of intelligent maintenance offers companies the opportunity to tackle the major problem of potential machine defects at a structural level. If intelligent maintenance is systematically introduced for the entire production process, this not only brings companies closer to the concept of the smart factory - it also gives them a significant advantage in direct competition.

Enabling Intelligent Maintenance with MES Data

Implementing smart maintenance also requires innovative software solutions that continuously record maintenance-relevant data centrally. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) enable comprehensive data exchange between machine and software, as well as the analysis and visualization of the actual production status. This not only allows interval-dependent maintenance work to be scheduled at an early stage and taken into account in production planning: With the help of artificial intelligence, patterns and interdependencies in production can be identified from historical and real-time data and used for intelligent maintenance.

CTA for the maintenance software solution

© GFOS Group

The analysis of machine, energy and process data provides information about deviations from normal values that could lead to disruptions in the short or long term. Production managers can initiate measures accordingly - long before regularly scheduled maintenance work - and thus prevent machine breakdowns. Particularly in the case of complex and networked systems, root cause analysis without corresponding software modules presents specialists with major challenges, as errors can often only be identified with enormous effort. However, with the help of dashboards, those responsible can always keep an eye on the most important events and relevant KPIs.

Some smart maintenance systems already initiate various maintenance measures independently and automatically take them into account in production planning. The maintenance work is reported to detailed planning so that orders can be rescheduled in good time, transports can be rescheduled and personnel resources can be deployed elsewhere. The database on which the artificial intelligence is based is constantly growing - evaluations and forecasts become increasingly precise over time and ensure faster response times and maximum efficiency.

The Advantages of Smart Maintenance - At a Glance 

In practical application in companies, the following points in particular speak in favor of the concept of intelligent maintenance:

Graphical representation of the advantages of Smart Maintenance

The smart maintenance approach offers companies a range of benefits - from lower costs to higher availability. © GFOS Group

Intelligent Maintenance - The Scenario Comparison

In the following scenario, we want to give an example of the difference such a smart approach to maintenance makes in practice.

Without Smart Maintenance - Production Interruption due to Undetected Wear

A manufacturer of precision components for mechanical engineering relies on manual visual inspections and maintenance according to a maintenance schedule. A worn ball screw is overlooked on a CNC milling machine. During series production, the component fails, leading to faulty milling processes and the shutdown of an entire production line. 

Due to this failure, orders have to be rescheduled and finished parts have to be reworked - resulting in increased material usage, delivery delays and dissatisfied customers. Depending on the type of orders affected by this failure, inadequate machine maintenance can even result in long-term reputational damage for the company.


With Smart Maintenance - Continuous Production Without Interruption

The manufacturer of precision components has been relying on a combination of a modular MES solution and AI in production for some time now. As part of this conversion of its production, it has also established a data-supported smart maintenance system. This now monitors the operation of critical components such as ball screws in real time. 

Sensors analyze vibrations, noise behavior and running times, among other things. When the first anomalies are detected, the system reports the need for maintenance. Replacement takes place proactively within the planned production window, without any unplanned interruptions. The quality of the parts produced, the company's own adherence to deadlines and, last but not least, operational reliability are guaranteed.

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